Sei Itō
Sei Itō, born Hitoshi Itō, was a Japanese Modernist writer of poetry, prose and essays, and a translator.
Life
Sei Itō was born in Matsumae, Hokkaidō, under the name of Hitoshi Itō. After graduating from Otaru Higher Commercial School, he moved to Tokyo and entered the Tokyo College of Commerce, which he left without a graduate. In 1926, he debuted with the poetry collection Yukiakari no michi. Together with writers like Junzaburō Nishiwaki, Riichi Yokomitsu and Tomoji Abe, Itō became an exponent of writers who introduced European Modernist literature into Japan in the literary journal Shi to shiron, and kept aiming at what he termed "modernism" in his own writing throughout his life.Starting in 1931, he provided the first complete translation of James Joyce's Ulysses into Japanese in the 1930s. Itō's 1937 novel Streets of Fiendish Ghosts showed the influence of Joyce's stream of consciousness technique, and his style became known as "Shin shinri shugi". In 1950, he caused controversy for his complete translation of D. H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover, which became the case of an obscenity trial. He was awarded the Kikuchi Kan Prize in 1963 for his Nihon kindai bungaku taikei and the Japan [Art Academy] Prize in 1969.
Selected works
- 1926: Yukiakari no michi
- 1931: A Department Store Called M
- 1937: Streets of Fiendish Ghosts
- 1940–41: Tokuno Goro no seikatsu to iken
- 1946–48: Senkichi Narumi
- 1948: Shōsetsu no hōhō
- 1955–1969: ''Nihon kindai bungaku taikei''